And all at once with the tears his of lifeblood, Itachi is four years old again. He is staring into the eyes of the first and only soul who has ever truly known him, though they've just met. And he is happy for the first time in his short life; and so it had begun as a bright light staining a blood and bile soaked backdrop.

With a strangled sound from his lips, the eyes are gone from his view and he's left with the blood stains on the grass at his hands and knees. They are equal part his and equal part Shisui's, mixing together in the last proof that will ever exist outside of bittersweet memories and the fading bruises on his throat, of their coupling.

For a brief moment Itachi considers, pleads with himself to join the mangled and quickly fading body at the base of the cliff. He wants to join his star-crossed love through the pits of hell he knows they both belong. He has no doubts in his mind that they both have nothing but the fires of punishment waiting for them when they—though Shisui has already entered those fires, his mind is trying to tell him—reach the apex of their life on Earth.

They are both killers, monsters in their own right and Itachi holds no illusions that they are anything short of destruction incarnate.

But to Itachi, Shisui was light and love and everything that kept him centered and grounded. He was his very will to live, his very self-identity.

The boy who had been named a genius and a prodigy at the age of four, the boy who was pushed far beyond the normal—humane—capabilities of a child to be named the youngest captain of assassins the village had ever known, named himself Shisui Uchiha's lover. And in that naming, Itachi had finally gained something of his own, and finally had a safe place to call his own.

But the arms he had found his comfort in were gone. The body who had worshiped his own and taught him the meaning of pleasure was gone. The smile that was always too bright and brought with it too loud laughs for a monster such as him to ever witness was gone. The curly hair he'd lace his fingers through to keep himself from floating away when his body was that of a cloud was gone. That tongue he'd stick out between his lips when he was concentrating was gone. That broad nose that would crinkle when he tried to hold back a boisterous chuckle was gone. Those hands that touched him—gone! Those ears who heard him—gone! The back that carried him—gone!

Those eyes—those god damn eyes that had known him when he didn't even know himself were gone. Gone! GONE! Shisui was no more, vanished as if he were never there, with a sad smile on his face, with empty eye sockets that could still see the look on Itachi's face as if they were sitting down to fucking tea! It was all gone!

He had yet to move as he slowly came apart at the seams, bursting forth with a decade's worth of love lost in an instant. He crawled forward, knowing Shisui would laugh and tell him to stop, to "sleep now, Tachi" instead. The voice in his head adds a betrayed scorn to the his imagined version of Shisui.

How dare he think Itachi was strong enough to do this alone! How dare he think Itachi could live without him! How dare he! How dare he! HOW DARE HE!

Itachi doesn't even exist without Shisui.

There's an almost audible-only to the wind, only if the shadow of a curious ghost should think to listen along with it- snap in his head.

Shock is taking over, but for the first time in his life he cannot think logically, so this rationalization escapes him along with corpse along the flow of the river bellow him.

He is four again, and Shisui is not there and he is lost in a sea of bodies he will have to drain the life from once more.

He is tired, and he wants to listen to the eye staring at him in his favorite crow's skull. He wants to sleep now.

He pushes forth, only two feet to go until he reaches the edge.

His life no longer seems like it was his own. It seems rather like a dream of a wish of a stranger he passed on a wandering trail years ago. Strange and grainy film clips drift past his new eyes.

Is that him, kissing a boy in his bed at eight years old?

Is that him, kissing the same boy with a blind and inexperienced passion years later?

Is that him, letting a silent tear pass as he's entered gingerly by that same boy on his birthday?

Is that him, whispering "I love you's" in moments of great importance?

Is that him, thinking "I love you's" in the passing moments in between when that same damned boy smiles and laughs a lackadaisical laugh—that he knows he knows, but can't seem to remember the sound of it anymore—at him?

Itachi doesn't know.

Who is Itachi?

What did Itachi want again?

There's only one foot left, and he'll be at the ledge.

'Shisui' is the only name on his mind's loosened tongue. Why is that?

Why is he here? Why does his body feel like this again? It's like he's crawling through an ocean of mud and quicksand.

Why does he want to sleep so bad? 'Sleep now, Tachi.'

"Shisui." The word slip off of his tongue like a prayer, like he's said it so many times his mouth doesn't even need his permission to voice it anymore. The name is as much a part of him as Itachi seems to be.

'Protect the village; and the Uchiha name.'

Why, Shisui? Why would I do that, when you don't exist anymore?

He reaches the edge and looks down. There's not even a breath past on a gentle breeze indicating that there was ever a boy at the bottom.

'If I die, certain things will change.'

No. Why would he want them to? Why would Shisui, the all-knowing and all-powerful person in his life, think he would want that?

The wind whispers to him as it passes through his hair, sounding rather like a snake sensing out its prey.

"Sasuke," the wind tells him.

And he knows.

Itachi collapses, clutching at his chest just as tight as he's clutching to every memory he only moments ago tried to pass off as not his own.

Shisui is gone. And the hot, heavy tears pour out of flood gates he's long since kept tightly closed, only letting them open an increment in the arms of the angelic demon he's loved since he became who he is.

Shisui is gone, and with him he left a gift.

A gift of new power, a gift Shisui believed he had wasted on himself.

And it is all for Itachi and Sasuke.

Sasuke must live.

Itachi finally realizes why Shisui went jumping with a smile on his face into the fiery pits of hell.

For Shisui, it had been Itachi who must live. For that, he gave his life. For that, he trusted Itachi to know what to do without him.

When the last of his tears have dried, along with the blood on the grass and the wet warmth of a last kiss, Itachi gets up.

He knows what he must do.

He knows the gift he must give.

He knows he'll count the days until he can be greeted by the pain of fire just for one more moment in the arms of his beloved, for the rest of his life.

He allows himself to say the precious name one last time.

"Shisui."

And then he buries the box labeled with the name tattooed in blood and cherry-scented liquid on his heart in the deep recesses of his mind until his goals are completed.

Sasuke must live, and he will make it so.

Itachi is an old man in soul trapped in a young boy's body once more, and he breaths one last thing to the wind before he pretends his life hasn't happened the way it always has anymore.

"I love you."

And he thinks for only one moment, that the wind is laughing in that faraway place that all such breezes originate—where the living may never go—and it's telling him to get that look off of his face.

And so it is that it ended with a full moon staining the dark abyss that is the backdrop Itachi's soul with one painfully insignificant patch of light in the shape of a boy he will love until he exists no more.

Wooh- Okay so... That was hard to write. I'm literally in tears.

Please, please let me know what you think. This story means very much to me personally and I want it to be the best it can be, and if you like Shisui and Itachi as a pairing, I suggest the parent of this one-shot A Selfless Heart.

I thought about apologizing, but I won't.

I needed to write this.

For me, and for them.

Have a wonderful day.